Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i American Art Collector

We can’t believe 2021 is coming to an end! This figurative art for you to explore from artists and galleries around the country. We have seen so many new collectors this year, and we know that contemporary representational artwork is continuing to grow in appreciation. Our calendar of previews and events is already packed for 2022 and the year has not even started yet. In 2021 live events started to come back, and we continued to focus on sponsoring a number of major events and building a community for collectors and artists. Some of the highlights of the year included the LA Art Show in July (which returns in January in 2022), the Oil Painters of America’s national and regional exhibitions and Market Art + Desig, which returned to to Bridgehampton,…

This summer Sotheby’s in cooperation with the Art Renewal Center had an auction devoted to contemporary who are being collected and followed on social media. Hopefully this will be a first of many to come. Contemporary should be synonymous with diversity. With diversity also comes diverse styles and narratives all within the many facets of what is real. These 10 artists are working in a wide range of contemporary realism exploring lifestyles, social and political issues while maintaining the complexity of the figure as the central focus. MEGAN ELIZABETH READ @mae.read Megan (Mae) Elizabeth Read is an American artist living and working in Charlottesville, Virginia. She began as a charcoal and pencil artist but now works almost exclusively in oil with pieces ranging from small still lifes to large-scale figurative…

From Miami and Miami Beach to Naples, Sarasota, Palm Beach and more, Florida is a sunny place to be for a lot of reasons. With glistening coastlines and sandy beaches as well as numerous galleries, museums and arts institutions, the Sunshine State is a prime destination for collectors. Take the popular Miami Art Week, for instance, which brings a weeklong menagerie of blue-chip modern art fairs to the Miami/Miami Beach area. Art Miami, running December 1 to 5 with a VIP Preview on November 30, features an array of iconic and important art works, dynamic projects and special installations from more than 130 international galleries. During the 2021 CONTEXT Art Miami, collectors can explore artwork from international galleries showcasing emerging, midcareer and cutting-edge artists, continuoulsy pushing the conversation on where…

Arcadia Contemporary prepares for the solo show Reverie for portrait and figure artist Casey Childs, who will display about 12 new stunning pieces. Childs studied the works of 19th-century artists and used their paintings to inspire the new works, while also adding his contemporary vision. Spending 10 years as a graphic designer has contributed to his eye for design and the desire to create unique and interesting compositions, with a focus on bettering his technique, quality and concept. In three new pieces for the show, Childs will be revisiting a theme involving winged figures in what he calls his “angel paintings.” “I began paintings angels [while] inspired by Abbott Handerson Thayer’s winged figures and [because] I love painting people, but never know what to do with my backgrounds,” says the…

ridgette Meinhold has several engi-degrees, but admits one thing she never heard in engineering school was the word “abstraction.” And yet, the engineer-turned-artist is using science to take her interpretations of nature and turn them into gorgeous works of conceptual landscape art. The abstraction part comes into the picture with her encaustic process, which involves very simple materials, including paint pigment, beeswax and heat. “I create processes that create abstraction, whether it’s with the swirling of the pigment or how the torch reacts with the wax, I’m creating systems that allow abstraction to happen,” she says. “I don’t really see myself as a representational painter because photorealism has never been my goal. I’m looking for abstraction within nature.” Meinhold, who lives in Park City, Utah, doesn’t have to go far…

On his canvases, artist Milt Kobayashi brings to life the female figure through luscious brushstrokes and vibrant colors. In recent years he has focused primarily on the portrait in a smaller 10-by-10-inch format, which allows for his preferred alla prima method of painting that relies on simple shapes and forms. December 9 through 24, Bonner David Galleries will host the artist’s latest exhibition Quiet Dreams, featuring approximately 20 works of art. Many pieces will be this smaller format, but there will be some larger works on view as well. Kobayashi began his career as a watercolorist with the more muted work of Whistler being among his early inspiration. As he grew his career, the influences of Velásquez, Sorolla and Sargent began to take him down another path as did Japanese…

This year Meibohm Fine Arts will once again present Masters of Illusion – The Art of Trompe l’Oeil featuring work by the accomplished group of artists from western New York, founded by John Yerger (1935-2017). The gallery says, “This supportive group led by Joan Horn relies on one another in developing the tools and patience necessary to complete these intricate ‘fool the eye’ paintings.” Among the artists with work on view are Susan Abbott, Lucette Banas, Leslie Fornalik, Joan Horn, Maria Laurendi, Coni Minneci, Bruce Morrell, Marilyn Morrisey, MaryBeth Orrange, Susan Z. Ott, Michael Prezioso and Judy Winklhofer. The artwork in the exhibition ranges in subject matter, but it’s all done in the high detail that makes viewers do a double take. In Paper Birds, Morrell paints birds on different…

The subtle gradations of yellow ochre to blue violet in a desert landscape, the contrasts of scale and years between a massive 200-year-old cypress and a handful of sheep or the first time a mare reveals her colt to the world—these are a few of life’s endless joys that call artist Carol Peek to the easel. “Staying curious in life as well as at the easel are key elements to keeping my work exciting and new, translating this excitement, appreciation and curiosity to the canvas is the challenge,” she says. “Each new painting is an attempt to solve a creative problem.” In Subtle Shifts, Peek restrained the values and saturation of color in the mountains to a narrow window and gradually changed the hue and temperature from foreground to background…

Ever since winning first place in a second-grade art contest, artist Kim Eshelman has been experimenting with new methods of creating. As a teenager she worked abstractly on very large canvases, but over time, as she’s grown more introspective, so has her work. She lived for many years in the Seattle area before moving to a rural region of Washington close to where she was raised. Her body of work has progressively veered toward landscapes, and it’s been like coming home both figuratively and literally. She says, “What began as an intense desire to express myself evolved into an aspiration to evoke emotions and a feeling of our connection with nature in others.” Eshelman has steadily gravitated toward working solely with pastels. “The immediacy of using dry pigment appeals to…

Marsha Hamby Savage’s paintings all start with a feeling—a glace at something that catches her attention. “It creates a place to start my painting. My brain starts wondering about the objects and a story starts developing. The painting begins taking on a life of its own,” says the Georgia-based artist. “My hope is the story continues in the person viewing the painting. It may even be a different story they see and feel. It may be a discovery around a bend in the road or some mysterious aspect of the scene.” As she works on a piece, Savage lets the paint or pastel “do its own thing” at times and is open to paths that show up. Her biggest growth tends to happen when she experiments with those diversions. She…

Blazing Ahead Artist Alayne Sahar has had many opportunities to share her artwork on a national level recently. She exhibited in the 2019 and 2021 International Biennial Portrait Competition at Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art and in the fourth Annual National Juried Exhibition, also at the museum. September 2021 marked the debut of the exhibition Curves, which she curated for Poets/Artists. Included in the exhibition—focusing on curves in figures, cars, waves and more—was her painting Polka Dots, as well as the artwork of 19 other artists. Recently Sahar told us about the sale of her painting The Trailblazer, a beautiful figurative watercolor from her Gilded Women series. In the work the woman wears Amelia Earhart style clothing—a signature leather jacket and goggles. Sahar is represented by 33 Contemporary, and the…

We’re here, our final 2021 issue. It’s been quite a whirlwind, and I am sure into the position of executive editor has been full of both, and in reflecting on my first nine issues at the helm, I couldn’t be happier with what our editorial and design teams have accomplished this year. We wouldn’t be here without you—the collectors—and we wouldn’t be here without the galleries and artists who are represented in these pages. You are who keeps the art market thriving and interesting, with new exhibitions and innovations always around the corner, which in turn gives us the best content to cover in our pages. Our December issue is always a favorite with our dedicated Collector’s Focus on figurative artwork. In this issue Didi Menendez of Poets/Artists presents the…

Painting by Proxy, organized by Project: ARTSpace, features artists who share the practice of eliminating handmade marks from the physical fabrication of their paintings, deploying instead and some level of unknown allows their images to appear as if elevated and, in a larger context, beyond that of the individual creator. Large-scale paintings are presented in the intimate space of the gallery, amplifying the sensory impact of their work. Works will be on view through December 17. Art in Public Places Amonumental new sculpture by Hubert Phipps, titled Rocket, has been selected for Florida, at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus. Part of a cultural partnership between the Boca Raton Museum of Art and CP Group, the program aims to take artwork beyond the walls of museums and into public, outdoor spaces…

In 1999, Clive Smith won the prestigious I BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London. That same year I included his work in the exhibition Re-presenting Representation IV at the Arnot Art Museum. The following year we purchased one of his paintings for the permanent collection. At the time, I wrote about Clive’s themes of the human condition, isolation, comfort and social confinement as in his painting Double Single, 1998. I’ve been intrigued by the apparent changes in his work over the years and recently had the opportunity to catch up. Clive was a fashion designer in Paris, Naples and New York before studying painting and drawing with the late Peter Cox at the Art Students League of New York. It’s always tempting to find the influence…

November 30-December 4, 2021 Untitled Art Miami Beach Ocean Drive & 12th Street • Miami Beach www.untitledartfairs.com December 1-2, 2021 Miami River Art Fair The Penthouse Riverside Wharf • Miami www.miamiriverartfair.com December 1-4, 2021 NADA Art Fair Ice Palace Studios • Miami www.newartdealers.org December 1-5, 2021 Aqua Art Miami Aqua Hotel • Miami Beach www.aquaartmiami.com December 1-5, 2021 Art Miami Art Miami Pavilion • Miami www.artmiami.com December 1-5, 2021 CONTEXT Art Miami The CONTEXT Art Miami Pavilion • Miami • www.artmiami.com December 1-5, 2021 Design Miami Miami Beach Convention Center • Miami Beach www.designmiami.com December 1-5, 2021 INK Miami Suites of Dorchester • Miami Beach www.inkartfair.com December 1-5, 2021 Pinta Miami 31 Northeast 14th Street • Miami www.pinta.art December 1-5, 2021 Red Dot Miami Mana Wynwood • Miami www.redwoodartgroup.com December…

In her debut solo exhibition, Twilight Sleep, at Venvi Art Gallery in Tallahassee, Florida, Carrie Ann Baade presents imagery that reflects on the female experience. She does not shy away from difficult and real-life issues, which are represented by allegorical symbols and figures in collage-like compositions. Her paintings are considered autobiographical as well with first-person storytelling throughout. “Within this body of work [Twilight Sleep] are themes of female aberrations, the irreconcilable, the struggle of becoming conscious and the goddess being drowned. The concepts behind this new work are informed by a lack of women’s voices in the past and their lack of agency,” says Baade. “I could never understand why my mother would not or could not speak of my birth. After much questioning, she finally told me it was because…

Christopher Benson’s exhibition at EVOKE Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is called The Middle Place. He describes his paintings as falling into four realms, expressive realism and hard-edge realism, expressive abstraction and hard-edge abstraction. “I’ve been looking for the central point of all of them,” he says. “I’ve always thought of my paintings in some way as abstract. I don’t literally transcribe what I see. When I see something, I extrapolate a very distilled impression of it. I take a lot of stuff out. I make it look interesting on canvas.” Whether in a 4-foot square painting of crashing waves or in an 8-by-10-inch sketch of the nearby Galisteo Basin, Benson’s paintings are a symphony of energetic brushstrokes celebrating the material and drawing attention to the surface in the…

The artwork of Thomas Ascott is about accumulated memories and sensory experiences the artist has witnessed firsthand—things he’s touched, felt, heard and seen. These experiences swirl around in his consciousness until they finally make their way onto paper. And the ultimate result are scenes that seem to come from another world, of fantastical stylized characters—sometimes human in both skeletal and living forms, sometimes anthropomorphic creatures like frogs, salamanders and rhinoceri. In his oil on board A Tithe for the Old Gods, a small skeleton figure presents a tithe to a massive, kingly frog figure wading in a pond, seemingly a god of some sort. In another anthropomorphized scene, an orange salamander clutches his scarf, peering down at a sparrow perched on his back. The two are surrounded by blue azaleas…

Principle Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, hosts its Small Works show this December, once again bringing collectors a variety of superb artwork on a smaller-scale. These miniature masterpieces, with their often more affordable price points, open new doors for the beginning collector and create interesting, alternate pathways for the veteran collector seeking to build their collection. This year’s Small Works exhibition includes the talents of such artists as Jill Basham, Anna Wypych, Stanley Bielen, Megan Seiter and Celia Liberace. Basham comments on her landscape Hill Pass, which will be in the upcoming show, “I visited the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia not too long ago and was able to see the world from a higher perch. I am drawn to expansive views, and painted Hill Pass from my memories of…

Sculptor Betty Branch’s earliest memories are of “making”—paper dolls, cardboard playhouses, a fort in the woods. “For 40 years now, the making of sculpture has been almost as important to me as breathing,” she says. The female form, children and crows are her primary subject matter. “I approach the portrayal of woman as a purposeful, contemporary statement that we are strong, sensual, beautiful, nurturing and wise,” says Branch. The artist says imagery from ancient matriarchies is a source of inspiration and instruction, recalling the authority and dignity of the goddess. She is also exploring the “infinite possibilities in the image of Crow/Raven; as psychological ally and adversary, playmate and witty humorist, moving beyond the archetype of death to become an image for aging as well.” Branch works in diverse media,…

During Jian Wu’s more than five decades of artistic pursuit he has painted a wide range of subjects from cubic-style cityscape exploration done as a young artist fresh out of college, to experimental impressionist landscape works exhibited in galleries. However, none of these, the artist says, has shaped his approach to artistic expressions as deeply and strongly as portraiture. “[The] portrait is conventionally regarded as one of the most difficult subjects to paint, for it requires skilled brush techniques as well as in-depth understanding of human anatomy,” says Wu. “I am looking for something that is beyond likeness and beautiful [in] lighting and color; I’ve been searching for heart and soul inside the portrait I am painting. The human being is a mysterious existence in my artistic world. While people…

New York, USA • kgilesstudio@hotmail.com • www.kgilesstudio.com Artist and instructor Kathleen S. Giles has been working with watercolors for more than 26 years. Her realistic and sensitive portrayal of everyday life has won her awards across the country, including the National Watercolor Society First Place Purchase Award on several occasions and the Morris Watercolor Guild Award in the 2021 Transparent Watercolor Society show, to name a few. “My art has become such an all-encompassing force in my life that I am always involved in some aspect of it. Painting, teaching or imagining a new composition all keep me engaged and motivated,” says Giles, who works from her home studio and gallery in western New York state. Painting in a variety of genres, including still lifes, florals, figures and wildlife, she…

Discover New Art Available For Sale The new art of today’s major artists is in big demand, and if you’re serious about acquiring it you need to know about it sooner. When you subscribe to American Art Collector magazine you’ll be the first to know because each month we’ll email you the link to the latest issue online. You’ll have instant access to the latest issue immediately when it is published. You’ll see the art coming available for sale before the shows even open. Coast-To-Coast Coverage See new art being created by major living artists from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between. Many readers travel across the country to acquire pieces from galleries showing new work in this magazine. Covering The Major Art Destinations Our Art Lover’s…

This past year, UK-based artist Frances Bell unveiled a new commissioned portrait of Lieutenant Colonel John “Johnny” Kaye, Deputy Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. The striking portrait depicts the distinguished Lt Colonel Kaye seated next to a table, wearing a resplendent uniform of red, gold and black. “The composition,” Bell explains, “was inspired by the beautiful uniform that goes with the position of Her Majesty’s Bodyguard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, which is a chivalric position that Johnny was retiring from after many years.” The portrait was commissioned to highlight the honored role that he occupied for so many years. “He wanted to mark the moment with a portrait,” Bell says, “and the uniform is so decorative that we were always going to include it.” Born and raised in…

BETTY JEAN BILLUPS www.bettybillups.com BLUE RAIN GALLERY 544 S. Guadalupe Street Santa Fe, NM 87505 (505) 954-9902 info@blueraingallery.com www.blueraingallery.com DONELLI DIMARIA cinder48@msn.com donelli-dimaria.pixels.com EILEEN CORSE emcorseart@gmail.com www.eileencorse.com GALERIE MARK LEIBNER (514) 984-5524, www.markleibner.com ISAAC PELAYO (951) 446-6445, www.isaacpelayo.com J.M. BRODRICK www.jmbrodrick.com KAREN ANDERER FINE ART 146 N. Prince Street, Lancaster, PA 17603, (717) 393-8807 www.karenandererfineart.com KARI VISSCHER karivisschermd@gmail.com www.karivisscher.com LESLIE NOLAN Washington, DC paintings@leslienolan.com www.leslienolan.com www.contemporary-images.com LORETTA MCNAIR (310) 831-3400, info@lorettamcnair.com www.lorettamcnair.com MAXWELL ALEXANDER GALLERY 406 W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90015, (213) 275-1060 www.maxwellalexandergallery.com MICHELE POIRIER-MOZZONE poirier.mozzone@gmail.com www.poirier-mozzone.com PAUL SCOTT GALLERY 7103 E. Main Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85251, (480) 596-9533 www.paulscottgallery.com PHILIPPE FARAUT www.philippefaraut.com RICHARD S. JOHNSON rjohnson.fineartstudioonline.com STONE SPARROW NYC 45 Greenwich Avenue, New York, NY 10014, (646) 449-8004 www.stonesparrownyc.com TRACY FREIN tracyfrein@gmail.com tfrein.artspan.com WILLIAM A. SCHNEIDER…

The characters in Alexandra Tyng’s interacting with people from the past or the future as well as their own past and future selves. In two of her most recent paintings, she explores “aspects of Aphrodite/Venus, the Greek/Roman goddess of love and beauty and Eros/Cupid, Aphrodite’s son and also the god of romantic love…I began by asking myself what these mythological figures would have been like as real people living today.” Carl Jung wrote about myths as expressions of a collective unconscious, ideas encoded in humans since their beginning. James Hillman, who was director of studies at the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich in Switzerland, wrote, “The plots that entangle our souls and draw forth our characters are the great myths. That is why we need a sense of myth and knowledge…